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ANA: New Questionnaire Helps Determine Level of Dysfunction Resulting From Parkinson's Disease By Marvin Ross TORONTO, ON -- October 7, 2004 -- A new, shorter and easier to administer questionnaire designed to assess handicap associated with Parkinson's disease was unveiled at the American Neurological Association here on October 5th 129th Annual Meeting. Called "Handipark", the questionnaire arose out of the post-marketing analysis of the use of ropinirole in France, explained François Tison, MD, Service de Neurologie, Hopital Du Haut-Leveque, Pessac, France. Dr. Tison presented a study that evaluated the validity of the Handipark questionnaire in 341 patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The questionnaire consists of 5 items that describe the global impact of Parkinson's disease on various aspects of daily life -- discomfort, occupational and leisure activity, ability to move about and travel, ability to dress and wash, and ability to feed oneself. Scores ranged from 1 (no or minimal functional impairment) to 10 (total dependency). The researchers also compared the Handipark against standard measurements tools currently in use to assess patients with Parkinson's disease. Participants' mean score on the Handipark was 3.6 and increased significantly with age and with duration of disease. Correlations were high between the Handipark scores and scores on standard scales used in Parkinson's. The correlations with the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale was 0.66 (P <.0001), with the Hoehn and Yahr scale it was 0.65 (P <.0001), with Schwab and England it was -0.73 (P <.0001), with the first item on the Clinical Global Impressions score was 0.75 (p<0.0001), and with the 39-question Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire it was 0.57 (P <.0001). While the Handipark is not a descriptive tool, Dr. Tison said, further validation will be provided after a 1-year follow up of the data is completed. [Presentation title: "CURE, A French epidemiological study on the use of ropinirole in patients with Parkinson's disease usefulness of a new brief questionnaire: 'Handipark'." Abstract 257' SOURCE: Doctor's Guide http://tinyurl.com/47m9z Reference: (PubMed) Rev Neurol (Paris). 2003 Sep;159(8-9):767-74. Related Articles,Links [Handipark: a simple test of the impact of Parkinson's disease on activities of daily living] [Article in French] Ziegler M, de Broucker T, Damier P, Humbert R, Clerson P, Richard-Berthe C. Service de Neurologie, Hopital Leopold Bellan, Paris. Handipark, a new score for measuring the impact of Parkinson's disease on daily life activities is presented. The global score ranging from 1 to 10 (without half points) is easy to determine. For a given patient, the score takes into account 5 items describing the global impact of the disease;Inter- and intra-observer reproducibility were determined. The reliability of the score was tested during two sessions separated by a 3-week interval. Five qualified neurologists scored 30 Parkinson's patients presented randomly for scoring using a semi-structured video- recorded interview. Intra-observer reproducibility was good (concordance coefficient; k=0.74, Spearman's correlation coefficient; r=0.88). Inter-observer reproducibility was also good: r=0.96 (first session), r=0.87 (second session); the agreement coefficient between the 5 observers was k=0.85 (first session), k=0.82 (second session). Distribution curves of the Hanipark score was described in 150 Parkinson's disease patients to study the correlation with items of other scales specific for Parkinson's disease (UPDRS, Hoehn & Yahr). A number significant correlations were found. Handipark is a reliable tool easy to use in clinical practice by a large panel of physicians caring for Parkinson's disease patients to assess the impact of Parkinson's disease. Further studies are needed to assess its usefulness for the follow-up of patients and assess the therapeutic impact. Publication Types: Clinical Trial Evaluation Studies Randomized Controlled Trial PMID: 13679719 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://tinyurl.com/5tcmo * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn